National Consumer Helpline (the "NCH"), follows this privacy policy for their call centre and website www.nationalconsumerhelpline.in (the "Site") ,queries received through SMS, Mobile applications ,E mails, Social Media including facebook, Twitter Etc. ,in order to demonstrate its firm commitment to privacy. “We” or “Us”, as used in this Privacy Policy, may include the National Consumer Helpline and the websites within the NCH. The following discloses NCH information gathering and dissemination practices for the information collected through its call centre and the Websites. We encourage you to read this Policy before using this call centre and the Website. Your use of the call centre and the websites signifies that you agree with all terms and conditions of this Policy. In case if , you disagree with any part of this Policy, you are requested not to use the same , as going through and using the same shall mean that you have deemed to agree, accept and abide by the same.

National Consumer Helpline is a project supported by Department of Consumer Affairs, Govt. of India and is functioning under Centre for Consumer Studies, Indian Institute of Public Administration, Indraprastha Estate, New Delhi-110 002. The project has been mandated to provide advise, guidance and information to the consumers calling NCH as well as consumers visiting the websites or raising queries through SMS, Mobile applications ,E mails, Social Media including facebook, Twitter Etc and for empowering consumers to enable them to get redressal to their consumer grievances against service providers, companies/ businesses etc.

A. Personally Identifiable Information

We will collect personally identifiable information about you, such as your name, postal address, telephone number, mobile numbers, e-mail address, as provided by you when you call us or visit the website, or raise queries through SMS, Mobile applications ,E mails, Social Media including facebook, Twitter Etc on your own. You may provide personally identifiable information when you create an account on the website or call us, sign up for email communications, participate in a survey for appropriate advocacies, contact consumer care service, to inform us about the grievances being faced by you so as to explore a solution to the grievances or inform us about unethical business practices prevailing in the country.

Your personally identifiable information may be used by us for all legal purposes, which may include, but are not limited to, responding to your requests, processing your grievances to be taken up with the concerned companies or with the regulators, Govt. Authorities, Media etc. If you choose to opt-in, you may receive certain future information or communications from NCH about the general advisories, do’s and dont’s, feedback about grievances for appropriate advocacies. NCH may share your personally identifiable information with the objectives as laid down with the project mandate. NCH shall also be using call recording facility to record the conversation that shall take place between the caller and the counsellor.

We shall also be taking mandated information that may be required to facilitate companies, business houses, service providers for consumer grievance redressal.

B. Demographic Information

We may also collect demographic data, such as your gender and postcode, when you provide this information to us. Demographic data may be used to fullfill objectives as laid down for the project.

A. NCH may share personally identifiable information to the extent it feels appropriate with the companies, service providers, Regulatory Authorities, State/Central Govt. Departments, Media with an objective of consumer empowerment. We shall strive to ensure that no data are shared with anyone outside for any commercial purposes except for the objectives to adhere to project mandates.

B. Any information shared by any person or Company shall be completely confidential and shall not be shared especially if the same is of commercial confidence, trade secrets or intellectual property, the disclosure of which would harm the competitive position of a third party, unless the competent authority is satisfied that larger public interest warrants the disclosure of such information.

C.Strategic Partners

From time to time we may enter into a special relationship with business houses, companies, service providers, Regulatory Authorities, State/Central Governments, Media to facilitate consumer empowerment improvement in quality of services, amendments in regulations with a purpose of pre-purchase or post purchase empowerment. These special relationships may include business partners, sponsors. media and co-branded sites (referred to here as "co-branded pages"). Any information, including personally identifiable information that you provide on one of these co-branded pages, may be shared with these third party partners. However, it may be added here that any information shared by any person or Company shall be completely confidential and shall not be shared especially if the same is of commercial confidence, trade secrets or intellectual property, the disclosure of which would harm the competitive position of a third party . In case of other information shared with these third parties , they may use your information in accordance with their own privacy practices, for which you may check their websites for information regarding their privacy policies.

D. Service Providers

We may use third party service providers to help us operate our project mandate and this Site or administer activities on our behalf, such as sending emails, forwarding grievances and other administration. We may share your information with these third parties for those limited purposes.

E. Other Disclosures

Personally identifiable information of any individual user may be shared with other companies/ departments/law enforcing agencies outside NCH (i) as permitted by law, (ii) in the event of a transfer of ownership of the project to any other agency by the project sponsors or (iii) where we determine that disclosure of specific information is necessary to comply with the request of a law enforcement or regulatory agency or other legal process, or (iv) to protect the interests or safety of the country.

This Site may contain links to other sites that are not operated by NCH. NCH is not responsible for any contents, information or material displayed or available on the connected links or referred website links on the NCH website , as the NCH has no control over these and they may contain illegal / incorrect/incomplete content or material on their respective website and referral links. These links are merely provided for your convenience and to facilitate further information. This would not mean that we endorse these links or websites. We have no responsibility for the content and information available on such links or website(s).In case if , any damage occurs to any one by the use of information and material available on these websites, NCH will not be responsible for the same. Furthermore ,the NCH is not liable for any postings or messages published by users /readers on discussion boards, guest books or mailing lists etc.of such websites and links. If you provide any personally identifiable information through any such third party website, your transaction will occur on such third party's website (and not on this site) and the personally identifiable information you provide will be collected by and controlled by the privacy policy of that third party. NCH recommends that you review the privacy policy of third party websites arrived at from links on this Site.

This Site has security measures in place to help protect against the loss, misuse and alteration of the personally identifiable information under its control. NCH employs reasonable security measures consistent with standard industry practice to help protect against public access to personally identifiable and account activity information collected on and used by NCH at this Site or on queries received through SMS, Mobile applications ,E mails, Social Media including facebook, Twitter Etc .For instance, access to our databases with personally identifiable information are fully secured and access to the same is limited to key personnels only . Personally identifiable information and account activity are also protected through the use of user names and passwords. In order to help maintain the security of your information, you are advised protect the confidentiality of your user name and password.

NCH reserves the right to make any changes in this Privacy Policy without prior notice. These changes will take effect immediately upon posting of the same. By continuing to use the Site following such changes, you will be deemed to have agreed to such changes ,voluntarily . If you do not agree with the terms of this Privacy Policy, please do not continue using the Site as going through and using the same shall mean that you have deemed to agree, accept and abide by the same.

If you have any questions about this Privacy Policy or the practices of this Site, you may contact: National Consumer Helpline Email: web@nationalconsumerhelpline.in (Please mention subject matter as NCH Privacy Policy )